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At last, after temperatures in the high 90s and even 100s, and humidity over 60%, the weather started cooling a bit on this Monday and would remain so for the rest of the week.

The original plan for today was to visit both Newport and Jamestown islands, but my dawdling around Newport eventually cost us time and we had to save Jamestown for another day. I couldn't help it, though, as Newport is so picturesque and everywhere you turn there is something fascinating. It is also a fantastic city to walk around, as my poor friend would find to her chagrin. We parked the car near the visitor's center and we walked for miles around the place.

Past downtown and the shops on Thames St....up to Bellevue and the International Tennis Hall of Fame...past the historic houses along Bellevue...The Breakers House and the Cliff Walk...and back down to the wharf and Thames St.

To get to Newport from mainland Rhode Island, you take 138 east over the Verrazzano Jamestown Bridge, thru Jamestown island and then over the Pell Bridge (look for the Rose Island lighthouse to the south), where you have to pay a toll of $4.00 to enter Newport. On the drive over, we had Led Zeppelin's July 6, 1969 performance at Newport Jazz Festival blasting.

Follow the signs along America's Cup Ave. to Scenic Newport and the Visitor's Center and park your car in the nearby parking garage. From there you can head out walking in any direction, wherever your fancy takes you.

Looking east towards Washington Square along Thames St.

Entering the row of shops and restaurants along Thames St.

Old Trinity Church and the park.

St. Mary's Church on Memorial Blvd., where John F. Kennedy and Jackie were married.

They haven't erased all traces of Christopher Columbus in America yet...although the PC Police are working on it. Christopher Columbus statue at intersection of Memorial and Bellevue.

Shops along Bellevue Ave. Look at that beautiful red brick sidewalk.

Edited August 15, 2013 by Strider

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One reason for my excitement at visiting Newport, and a major reason we spent more time than expected in Newport, was the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Tennis is my favourite sport to play...enough said. These are also the only public grass courts in America! My friend was very patient and kind in indulging me my interest in walking about.

The great Fred Perry.

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Okay, so tennis may not be your bag. But one thing everyone should do while in Newport is tour the beautiful, historical houses and mansions of the Bellevue neighborhood and walk the Cliff Walk along the eastern edge of the island.

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Doing nothing but watching the Dodger game so figured I'd make better use of the time...

Conclusion to Day 4 Monday July 22:

After looking at the historical mansions of Newport, we walked along the Cliff Walk, which is a trail several miles long that runs along the cliff edges from the southeastern coast up north to Memorial Blvd.

By this time, we had been walking nearly four hours or so, and since it was getting too late to hit Jamestown, we decided to walk back to Thames St. and find a good spot for supper. Coming to the end of the Cliff Walk near Memorial Blvd., we smelled the unmistakable odor of "Red Tide", that foul algae. Walking east on Memorial then right on Thames, we came upon a promising looking place called Benjamin's Raw Bar. http://www.benjaminsrawbar.com/

It turned out to be a fortuitous choice as I had one of my most memorable meals on my trip here, including my first taste of real Rhode Island Clam Chowder, which is now my favourite variety of chowder.

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Showtime just had a special a few days back, Channel 278 of Direct TV, a discovery channel, called "Jaws comes home". It was about the town of Chatham where we vacationed a couple years ago. The show was filmed 2010 and we were there a year after. They tagged 5 great whites in the same waters we were swimming in! Off the Chatham lighthouse is the main beach and across from Chatham harbour is a very long sand bar with nothing on it but seals. That is what has drawn a population of great whites to the area. They set up an electronic system to see how many times those sharks went by the device in 24 hours. Over 400!! Yikes. So with the use of a satellite they learned alot. The great whites leave the area between Oct and Nov and head to southern waters. They may give birth off the coast of Georgia but its not proven. Just a theory. They have followed the tagged sharks around the tip of Florida and into Caribbean waters in the winter. But more amazing is the depths they recorded them at. They were going as deep as 2000 feet!!! Astounding. Perhaps to feed on large or giant squid is what they believe. The dives of these depths were in Southern waters. They did prove the sharks return to the Cape Cod area every summer. So Atlantic great whites were filmed for the first time in 30 years. Chatham is a perfect summer town and I believe part of Jaws was filmed there and much on Martha's Vineyard. They showed some sharks including blue sharks feeding on a dead humpback that had washed up near the sand bar. The water there is like ice. If you go down closer to Hyannisport its more tolerable. There is a beach named Craigsville that is great for swimming. And its shallow quite a ways out. I really would like to go back to our hotel on the ocean there in Chatham. Its just beautiful.

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Jaws-Principal photography began May 2, 1974, on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, selected after consideration was given to eastern Long Island. Brown later explained that the production "needed a vacation area that was lower middle class enough so that an appearance of a shark would destroy the tourist business." Martha's Vineyard was also chosen because the surrounding ocean had a sandy bottom that never dropped below 35 feet (11 m) for 12 miles (19 km) out from shore, helping the prop sharks to operate smoothly.